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AN ADDRESS 



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DONGAN CLUB, 



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BY 



FRANKLIN M. DANAHER 



JULY 22, 1889. 



H- l I I I I II ■! I M 1 4- 



ALBANY: 

PUBLISHED BY THE DONGAN CLUB. 

1889. 






JAMES B. LYON, 

PEINTBB, BINDER AND ELECTEOTYPEB. 

ALBANY, N. Y. 



ADDRESS. 



^^N the 22d day of July, 1686, to follow the language 
5^^ of the document, " Thomas Dongan, Lieutenant 
and Governor of the Province of New York and 
Dependencies in America, under his most sacred 
Majesty, James the Second, by the Grace of God, of 
England, Scotland, France and Ireland, King, Defender 
of the Faith, and so forth, and Supreme Lord and 
Proprietor of said Province of New York and its Depend- 
encies," by virtue of his commission and authority and 
the power in him presiding, granted a charter to the 
town of Albany, confirmed its ancient rights, gave it 
privileges, exceptional to the age, and made it a city. 

Two centuries later, the city of Albany, still in pos- 
session of its chartered rights, hallowed by time and 
vivified by the gladsome light of liberty, as it had found 
expression in a free country, where the rulers derive 
their powers from the consent of the governed, and not 
through the parchments of men, by the grace of God, 
kings, celebrated the bi-centenary of the event. 

It did full honor to the character and patriotism of 
Thomas Dongan; it held him in grateful memory, and, 
because of the charter, it extolled his merits and sung 
his praises. 

5 



Stomas g0txgati. 

During the celebration, the young Irish- Americans of 
Albany inquired into his life, examined his record as 
Governor of colonial New York, traced his career as a 
soldier and patriot, and found that he was more than a 
grantor of charters, and resolved to lay myrtle, as well 
as cypress, on his tomb, and to keep his memory fresh 
and perpetuate his deeds for all time, in the place which 
he protected as a soldier, and fostered as a governor; 
which he made historical by his presence, and a city by 
his favor. 

For those reasons was this organization called the 
Dongan Club. It is proper that it should place among 
its archives some record of the life and services of this 
illustrious man, but the task should have been given to 
other hands. 

To rake, amid the ashes of the burned-out fires of two 
centuries ago, for the facts that go to make the history 
of Dongan's life, would be a delightful task to one of 
the literati or to a man of leisure; the vistas of life in 
the colonies, which it reveals, the insight which it gives 
into the character and methods of the hardy colonists 
and brave aborigines, the richness of soil and the pro- 
fusion of nature which the search develops, are among 
the rewards of his industry, but to a man busy in the 
every-day walks of life, the task is beyond his time and 
I regret that I accepted the duty, even upon your kind 
and flattering request. 

The details of Dongan's private life are buried with 
him; we can only form an estimate of his character and 
of his ability as a ruler, from the records of his acts and 

6 



sayings while Governor of New York. Their complete 
exposition would be a history of the province during 
his time, an undertaking both beyond my powers and 
your patience, so I will plead what I may hereafter say 
in part performance of your request, leaving to the 
future historian of the club, the honor and pleasure of 
doing a full measure of justice to this noble Irishman. 

Thomas Dongan, the second earl of Limerick, was 
born at Castletown, County of Kildare, in Ireland, in 
1634, of an ancient and representative Catholic family. 
The surname of Dongan is said to be of Milesian origin. 
It is as ancient as Ireland's history. It appears as 
Donnegan, Dungan and Dongan; its earliest Irish form 
being O'Dunnagan. The Irish Dongans are among the 
families descended from Heremon, the seventh son of 
Milesius, of Spain, from whom were descended the 
kings, nobility and gentry of the ancient kingdoms of 
Connaught, Dalriada, Leinster, Meath, Ossory; of Scot- 
land, since the reign of Fergus Mor Mac Earca, in the 
fifth century; of Ulster, since the fourth century; of the 
principalities of Tirconnell and Tirowen, and of England, 
from the reign of King Henry II down to the present time. 

O'Hart names the Dungans or Dongans among the fam- 
ilies of English descent in Kildare, where Dongan was 
born, but places the Dongans, earls of Limerick, among 
the Anglo-Norman families of Limerick and Clare. It 
may be that the Dongans migrated to England in the 
early centuries and returned later to Ireland, or coming 
directly from England, their name, in the course of time, 
was Hibernicized. 

7 



In 1387 Dermot O'Dongan was presented by the 
Marquess of Dublin to a benefice within the diocese of 
Limerick, and in 1392 the king granted to Thomas 
O'Dongan, chaplain, and then an admitted Irishman, the 
liberty of using the English tongue and law. The old 
annalists speak of the ancient sept of O'Donnegan, who 
were extensive proprietors in the half barony of Orrery, 
County of Cork. 

In 1395 John Dongan, a Benedictine monk. Bishop of 
Derry, was transferred to the See of Down; Henry IV 
made him Seneschal of Ulster, among other high and 
memorable ofiices; he died in 1412. 

Later, John Dongan, who had been a second remem- 
brancer of the exchequer, in the time of Henry VIII, 
was a proprietor in the city of Dublin, and in the 
Counties of Carlow and Clare. He died in 1592 and 
devised his estate to Walter, his eldest son and heir, 
with remainders on William, Edward and Thomas 
Dongan, second, third and fourth sons in tail .male, 
successively. 

Sir Walter, his heir, was styled of Abbottstown, 
County of Dublin; he was a patriot and JDrought four 
archers on horseback to the general hosting on the 
hills of Tara in 1593. He settled his estates in 1615, and 
the next year passed a patent for the manor at Kil- 
drought (Castletown) and other possessions; was made a 
baronet October 23, 1623, and died in 1626. 

Sir John Dongan was Walter's son and heir; he was 
23 years of age at the time of his father's death and 
married. He was a member of the Irish Parliament 



and a captain of horse in 1643. He had four sons, 
the subject of our address being the youngest. Sir 
Walter, his eldest son, was one of the confederate 
Catholics who assembled in 1646 at Kilkenny. Richard 
Talbot, the celebrated Earl of Tyrconnell, served under 
Sir Walter, who was his nephew. Sir Walter died 
without posterity. Oliver, the third son, was deep in 
the patriotic cause and was attainted in 1642. Sir 
William, the second son, for his devotion to his country 
and his adherence to the Stuarts, was compelled to 
fly to France, in Cromwell's time. He was among those 
who, through the Earl of Tyrconnell, petitioned Charles 
II, after the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660, for their 
estates, and was among the few who had them restored. 
Sir William, who was a knight and a baronet, was 
made Viscount Dongan on February 14, 1661, and on 
January 2, 1685, was advanced on the peerage to the 
earldom of Limerick, with remainder over, in default of 
heirs, to his brother Thomas. 

William, the first earl of Limerick, was a member of 
the royal privy council for Ireland, lord lieutenant of 
the County of Kildare, governor of the province of 
Munster and member of the House of Lords of the 
Parliament convened by James II, in Dublin in 1689. 

His son, Lord Dongan, was, by deputy and subdeputy 
clerk of the court of Common Pleas in the Irish court 
of Exchequer, a member of the Irish Parliament and 
after the resignation of his father, colonel of a regiment 
of dragoons, in King James' Irish army, known as Don- 
gan's Dragoons, which, after the Boyne, gained great 

9 B 



glory and fought bravely for France under the name of 
the King's Regiment of Dismounted Dragoons. 

The entire family was devoted to the house of Stuart, 
the Earl of Limerick being the personal friend of 
Charles II, and through the Earl of Tyrconnell, who was 
his uncle, deep in the councils and favors of the royal 
cause ; it was rich in landed estates and influential with 
the people. 

In the turbulent and bloody times in Ireland, that 
followed in the wake of the enforcement of Elizabeth's 
penal laws, whereby Catholic Irishmen were deprived of 
all liberty of conscience, of thought, and of action, 
despoiled of their estates and hunted like wild beasts, 
and of the rebellion of 1641, and the cruelties of Crom- 
well, in 1649, who crushed the Irish for their adherence 
to the king, in whose success they fondly imagined 
they saw a ray of hope, a brave, self-reliant and indom- 
itable race of Irish soldiers was made, whose life, from 
necessity, was one of daily battle, and whose occupa- 
tion was war with the hated invader. 

Among the chiefs in the fore -front of the Irish cause, 
the Dongans were prominent; they supported the 
Stuarts for love of country and freedom of conscience, 
and when the cause was dead they fled to France. 

Amid these scenes and among these men, Thomas 
Dongan spent the early years of his life. A soldier and 
a gentleman by birth, and a patriot by instinct, he was 
denied by the laws of the land, unless he would 
forswear his religion, preferment in both war and 
peace. 



True to his nature, he found vent for his courage and 
combativeness among the French, to whom his country- 
men were forced to fly to enjoy both liberty and the 
free exercise of their religion; he was among the 
earliest of the "wild geese" that flew over the waters 
to give renown and military glory to the Bourbon lilies. 

It is very probable that he accompanied his brother 
and the Stuarts when they fled to France in 1649, 
although he may have gone after 1641, when his brother 
Oliver was attainted. He entered the French army at 
once, and served continuously; we know that he partici- 
pated in all of Turenne's campaigns, until the latter 's 
death in 1675, and was, when he resigned in 1677, the 
colonel of an Irish regiment in Louis XIV's army, "a 
place worth to him £5,000 a year." The Duke of York, 
who was Dongan's senior by a year, also served under 
Turenne until 1656, when he accepted a commission in 
the Spanish army. It is possible that it was in France 
that the Duke of York came to know Dongan, and 
learned to appreciate those qualities which made him, 
in after years, so successful as Governor of New York. 

In 1677, Charles II gave peremptory orders that all 
his English subjects should leave France in forty- eight 
hours, and Dongan, loyal to authority, gave prompt 
obedience to the mandates of his king, resigned his 
commission and returned to England, leaving large 
arrears due him from the French government. These 
arrearages of pay were never received by him, for in 
July (27), 1686, while Governor of New York, he wrote 
to M. Denonville, Governor of Canada, concerning the 



relations of the French and English in their dealings 
with the Indians, and in the letter asked the Governor's 
assistance to procure for him 25,000 livres due to him 
from the French king for services as stated and certified 
to, by the intendant of Nancy before his departure, 
"vv^hich, when my prince called me out of the French 
service, I had no time to get, and as I had gone to 
Tangiers, and then some time after to New York, I had 
no opportunity of representing my case to his majesty." 
In a letter from Denonville to Dongan, dated September 
29, 1686, the former promises to urge his matter before 
the French king, and does so, for among the French 
State papers relating to America, a letter from the king 
(Louis XI Y) to Denonville is found, dated at Versailles, 
March 30, 1687, in which he says: "He has no know- 
ledge of Col. Dongan's claim of 25 M. £., which he 
pretends are due to him in France. He therefore has 
nothing to say to him on that subject." 

That ended Dongan's claim. The services he had 
rendered France had been forgotten in the harm he had 
done it in America. 

On his return to England from France in 1677, he was 
granted by Charles II a life pension of £500 per annum, 
and made lieutenant-governor of Tangiers, a place, evi- 
dently, of no profit, for in a letter written by him in 
1687, to the lord president of the board of trade, asking 
for moneys due to him, he says: "My going to Tangiers 
did not enrich my condition. Expences did more than 
Ballance my Profitt." On September 30, 1682, he was 
made Governor of the province of New York, which 



included Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, the District of 
Pemmaquid, now in Maine, and other territory in extent 
much larger than the present bounds of New York. 

That he was commissioned at this particular time to 
govern so important a province is high evidence of the 
opinion the king and Duke of York had of his honesty, 
administrative and military qualities, and of his know- 
ledge of men — a faculty characteristic of great statesmen. 

The political and financial situation of the colony 
required a practiced hand and a man of more than ordi- 
nary skill and judgment and one thoroughly acquainted 
with the French and their diplomacy. 

The French were aggressive, the Indians unfriendly 
and the colonists discontented. The administrations of 
Lovelace and Andros had been most tyrannical. Taxes 
had been levied without authority of law, the protests 
of the people had been treated with scorn, and their 
demand for a popular legislative assembly had been 
denied. When Andros attempted to force upon the col- 
onists a law, enacted on his own motion establishing 
for three years the rate of customs, the people were 
inflamed to a point of resistance, and in 1680 refused to 
pay any more duties. The Duke of York, who evidently 
knew that the directors of the Dutch West India Com- 
pany had stated that the company had expended 
1,200,000 guilders in the government of the province 
over and above the revenues it had received therefrom, 
feared that a similar deficit would be a charge upon his 
private purse, sent out Dongan, as Governor, to offset 
French influence, to conciliate the colonists and to con- 

13 



serve the colonial revenues. His instructions, dated 
January 27, 1682-3, exhibit a wonderful complaisance on 
the part of the Duke of York, and evinces much more 
of a spirit of fairness and liberality in his dealings with 
the colonists, than the Stuarts were giving to the king's 
subjects at home. 

Dongan arrived in New York in August, 1683. He was 
received with expressions of delight and satisfaction by 
the colonists, because they anticipated in his coming 
relief from the abuses of former governors and from 
intolerable taxation. They found him courteous and 
affable, and in his carriage and demeanor dignified, as 
became a soldier and courtier of Louis XIV, and wel- 
comed him both to their hearts and homes. He found 
the colony bankrupt, its revenue reduced, the people 
discontented even to rebellion; Connecticut, making a 
claim for a part of its territory; Pennsylvania, East and 
West Jersey, cutting into its trade, and consequently 
into its revenue; the French, warlike and aggressive, 
and making great inroads into the English influence 
among the Indians, many of whom were migrating to 
Canada; the forts decayed, the guns dismounted, the 
troops demoralized and without pay. By his beneficent 
acts he soon extinguished the fires of public discon- 
tent, so much so, that within a few months after his 
arrival the sheriffs addressed the Duke of York in 
most extravagant terms of gratitude and begged him 
to '* accept their most humble and hearty thanks for 
sending us over the Honorable Colonel Thomas Dongan, 
to be lieutenant and governor of this province, of whose 

14 



integrity, justice, equity and prudence, we had already 
had a very sufficient experience at our last general 
court of assizes." 

With military promptitude he inspected all the 
so-called forts and their meager, half-clad and poorly- 
armed garrisons, and his description of their condition 
is sad — in view, to him, of the great interests which 
they guarded and the people whom they protected. 

He put the province at once in a state of defense, 
paid the garrisons and renewed the military stores. 

His labors began with his arrival, among his first acts 
being to circumvent William Penn and secure the 
Susquehanna country to New York. 

In 1683, Penn and his agents visited Albany to 
purchase that valuable tract of land from the Onon- 
dagas and Cayugas, in fact, were in Albany when Don- 
gan arrived in New York. Their presence created great 
excitement in the colony; the commissaries of Albany 
petitioned Dongan to prevent the sale, for the loss of 
that region meant the death of their beaver trade, then 
bad enough, and a consequent reduction in the colonial 
revenue. Dongan hastened to Albany, where he found 
the wily and astute Quaker, drew him to New York 
and eventually succeeded in obtaining the Indian title 
to those lands for the colony. Penn was outwitted. 
Penn, although a Quaker, was on terms of personal 
intimacy with the Catholic Duke of York, and a most 
powerful and influential man in his court, to which 
he returned in a short time, Dongan's determined 
enemy. 

IS 



The Indians recognized his influence in the matter, for 
when he attended at a great council of the Onondaga 
and Cayuga Indians in Albany, on August 2, 1684, which 
he called at the request of the Right Honorable Lord 
Howard Effingham, Governor of Virginia, who came to 
Albany to treat with the Indians in order to prevent 
their forays into Virginia, the Indians addressed him as 
Brother Corlaer, a title derived from the name of a 
Dutchman, Arent van Curler, who by reason of his 
services had won their favor and affection, and said 
that they had shown their regard for him, for when 
Penn wanted the Susquehanna country, they gave it, on 
his account, to "the great Sachem, Charles, that lives 
over the great lake," and confirmed the grant. 

Smith, in his history of New York, says that Dongan 
surpassed all his predecessors in a due attention to 
the affairs with the Indians by whom he was highly 
esteemed. 

I wish it were within the limits of my time to give a 
short sketch of the remarkable and warlike Indians, 
known as the Five Nations, or Iroquois, who inhabited 
central New York, and possessed the country in the 
new world that divided the historic enemies in the old 
world, the French and the English. 

Until Dongan's time, the English had not succeeded 
in gaining the entire friendship of the Indians. The 
French, through Jesuit missionaries, had made a deep 
impression on the Indians, and weakened the English 
influence among them; they captured some of their val- 
uable trade and had induced many to migrate to 

i6 



Canada, where their descendants, the Caughnawaga 
Indians, who visited Albany during the bi- centennial, 
still reside. 

The value of the Indian trade to the colony can be 
estimated, because Dongan, writing of the public 
finances, reported on September 8, 1687, that the "rev- 
enue of the colony had been 35,000 to 40,000 beavers, 
besides peltry; this year only 9,000 and some hundred 
peltrys in all had been shipped." 

Dongan held the Indians at their true value; he con- 
sidered them the bulwark between the two nations, and 
believed that the country which secured their friend- 
ship would eventually triumph in the new world, and, 
with remarkable success conciliated them, and gained 
both their respect for his person and their friendship 
to the colonists. 

He gained their good will by diplomacy and fair 
dealing, and maintained it by fighting for them against 
the French, against their Indian enemies, against the 
weaknesses of the English king, against the traders who 
would rob them, and against the vengeance of the sister 
colonies which at times they raided. He treated them 
as men, and never failed in his promises made to secure 
their cooperation; in his intercourse with them, he was 
frank and bold, as became a soldier, and they liked him 
for it; his influence was as boundless as the trouble he 
took to succor them and advance their interests, and 
his success was as remarkable as it was to be expected. 

He caused the king's arms, with great formality, to 

be erected in all their villages, as evidence of his 

17 c 



protection, and forbade them to treat with the French ex- 
cept through himself, to the latter's anger and humiliation. 

His successful persistency in their behalf and his 
determination to protect them at all hazards, gained 
him the hatred of the French. They could neither 
deceive, deter nor intimidate him, nor could they get him 
superseded. Denonville reported him as a "very crafty 
man" and filled his official accounts with details of 
Dongan's unceasing activity, until the French took the 
extraordinary method of reaching him through the 
French king's intimacy with James, to the extent that 
he was forbidden, by orders from the home government, 
to interfere with the French in their dealings with the 
Indians. The English king undid the work of his 
lieutenant in America; as soon as he gained an advan- 
tage or strengthened the colony, the king commanded 
him to desist and his labor was lost. 

When in 1685, M. de la Barre, Governor of Canada, 
projected an expedition against the Iroquois, and made 
a herculean effort to totally destroy them because the 
French could not control them, Louis XIV procured 
letters from the Duke of York commanding Dongan 
to lay no obstacles in his way. Dongan was wiser than 
his master and knew that the English supremacy was at 
stake, so he warned the Indians of the intentions of 
the French, sent them ammunition and promised to 
assist them when needful, but disease and starvation 
ruined the French enterprise. 

Denonville, who succeeded De la Barre in 1686, 
intended another expedition and made secret prepara- 

i8 



tions, but was warned by Dongan, who anticipated his 
action, that the Indians were subjects of Great Britain, 
and that an attack upon them would be an infraction of 
the peace between France and England. 

Denonville denied all such intentions but could not 
deceive Dongan. 

The latter was tied both by instructions and the peace 
then existing between France and England and could 
not actively interfere, but he knew the weak state of 
the colony and the value of the Indian bulwark and 
wrote to Denonville that he would protect the Indians. 
When the French expedition became a certainty, he 
gave the Indians the benefit of his advice and military 
experience. 

He met the Five Nations — Senecas, Cayugas, Onon- 
dagas, Oneidas and Mohawks — at a grand council in the 
city hall in Albany on August 5, 1687. 

The orations delivered on the occasion by Dongan 
and the Indians are masterpieces of their kind. He told 
them that as soon as he had learned that the French 
had attacked their castles, he came up himself to give 
them assistance and advice; his propositions were full 
of policy, wisdom and kindness; he forbade them to kill 
their French prisoners, told them to make no peace 
without his sanction, particularly to keep faith with 
Governor Effingham, for at that very time there were 
parties of Oneidas down on the James river after spoils, 
and threatening them, that, if they did not stop their 
raids, he could not protect them longer, because one of 
the charges made against him was that he protected 

19 



the New York Indians who murdered the king's sub- 
jects in Maryland and Virginia. He sent Indian runners 
at once to Canada to induce the Christian Indians to 
return, and promised them and those then in Albany 
English priests, for he had forbid them to have inter- 
course with the French Jesuits. He organized war 
parties and had the Indians assume the aggressive, and 
ordered them to bring to Albany their wives, children 
and old men, whom he settled temporarily at Catskill, 
Livingston's land and along the Hudson, and all their 
corn, except that which was needed by the young 
warriors remaining in the castles. 

He returned to Albany in October, 1687, to take com- 
mand of the troops stationed there, which consisted of 
400 foot and fifty horse and 800 Indians, to give the 
Iroquois moral support and protect the colony in the 
event of its becoming necessary. He remained in 
Albany until the spring of 1688. This French expedi- 
tion was also a failure, but, notwithstanding Dongan's 
protests, because of the moral effect on the Indians, 
to have peace concluded only through the English, 
James II, by orders, again counteracted his efforts, and 
a treaty was signed between the French and the 
Indians, in Montreal, which ended the war. 

The French again contemplated the destruction of the 
Iroquois, and not being able to cause Dongan's removal, 
nor bind him by orders from his king, they were put, 
for the sole purpose of counteracting his efforts, to the 
expediency of inserting in a treaty between England and 
France, made in 1688, called the neutrality treaty, a 



clause by which each engaged not to interfere with the 
other in their wars against the Indians. England was 
here outwitted, and French diplomacy gained a victory 
over British statesmen that it could not win from 
Dongan. France immediately sent fresh troops to 
America, under the command of the veteran Count de 
Frontenac, and renewed the war. 

Dongan, in the meantime, had been superseded ; the 
French were successful in many of their raids ; Schen- 
ectady was destroyed and its people massacred in 
February, 1690, and more damage done to the colony 
than ever had been accomplished before. 

In addition to protecting the Iroquois in war, he also 
endeavored to make them Christians, and found his 
opportunity in the events of the times. 

The influence of the French Jesuits over the Indians 
could not be over-estimated ; it even divided the Five 
Nations, so that when the justices and commissaries 
of Dutch Albam?- petitioned for English Jesuits to be 
sent among them to overcome the French influence and 
save their trade, Dongan looked at both the religious 
and civic side of their appeal. 

He reported their request to England, procured for 
the converted Indians, already in Canada, to whom he 
had sent runners asking their return, " a piece of land 
called " Serachtague (Saratoga) lying upon Hudson's 
river about forty miles above Albany," and promised, 
if they would return, to give them this land, send 
them priests and also build them a church, which 
terms the Indians accepted ; he asked the government 



to send him over five or six priests, so "that three 
may always travel from castle to castle and the rest 
to live with those that are Christians." 

Nothing came from the project, as far as the Indians 
were concerned, by reason of their distance from Eng- 
land and the wars then raging, but that the priests did 
come is evident, for it is related that Father Henry 
Harrison, an English Jesuit, as well as Rev. Alexander 
Innis, of the Church of England, the chaplain of the 
garrison of Fort James, spent the winter of 1687 with 
Dongan in Albany. The presence of Jesuits in New 
York about this time is shown by the annals of the 
order, and it is said that Dongan erected a Jesuits' 
college in New York, under pretense of teaching Latin 
to the judges, and applied to King James to appropriate 
the king's farm to its maintenance, but he refused. 
The school did not get patronage, and vanished. 

It might be said that Dongan's promise to furnish 
priests to the Indians, and his bringing Father Harrison 
to Albany, in 1687, to meet them, was pure politics, 
revenue and trade, and on an equality with the petition 
of the Dutch burghers, who were willing, though they 
were stanch Protestants in a persecuting age, to have 
the Indians Catholics and tolerate Jesuits among them 
if they could barter rum for furs with the Iroquois. 

If that act stood alone I might agree with the critic, 
but judging of his character by his acts, we must con- 
sider him as acting from a decided conviction as to the 
right and from the best and purest of motives, founded 
on considerations both of humanity and government. 



The influence lie had in molding public acts in favor 
of the right to worship God according to the dictates of 
one's conscience, the protecting aegis that he threw over 
all creeds during his career as Governor, and his earnest 
zeal in endeavoring to shed the light of Christianity 
amid the gloom of paganism surrounding the Indians, 
taken in connection with the military exigencies of the 
day, are convincing proofs with his birth, training and 
associations, that he acted solely from a sense of duty. 
His love for the Indians is evidenced by all his official 
acts, and the regard they bore him, because of it. He 
used the political factors in their conversion only as a 
means to accomplish his objects. The Jesuits were 
demanded by the colonists for State reasons ; the Indians 
wanted them, because they liked to have priests 
at their castles, and Dongan was willing to gratify 
both, from convictions foreign to either. It seems as 
though he wished to convert them, because he loved 
them, and because of their manliness and bravery, 
he wanted to elevate them to a higher plane of 
existence. 

Jean de Lamberville, of the order of Jesuits, called in 
Indian " Teiorhensere," wrote to Dongan from Onnon- 
tague of date of September 10, 1685, of Dongan's services 
in making Christians of the Indians; and that the 
missionaries were among them " that the blood of Jesus 
Christ, shed for all men, may be useful to them and 
that his glory may be great throughout the earth," and 
asked the governor to use his great influence with the 
Indians for their protection. 

23 



Denonville, the French Governor, wrote from Ville 
Marie, on June 20, 1686, to Dongan, concerning his 
French majesty's zeal for the progress of religion, and 
for the support and maintenance of the missionaries 
among the Indians, and asking for their protection, and 
said: "I expect from your piety that you will not be 
opposed to that, knowing how much you love religion." 

In reply, Dongan wrote from New York, July 27, 1686: 
"I doubt not but your master's inclinations are very 
strongly bent to propagate the Christian Religion, and 
I do assure you that my master has no less a share in 
so pious intentions; for my part, I shall take all imagin- 
able care fchat the fathers who preach the Holy Gospell 
to those Indians, over whom I have power, bee not in 
the least ill-treated, and, upon that very accompt, have 
sent for one of each nation to come to me, and then 
those beastly crimes you reprove shall be checked 
severely, and all my endeavors used to suppress their 
filthy drunkenness, disorders, debauches, warring and 
quarrels, and whatsoever doth obstruct the growth and 
enlargement of the Christian faith among .the people." 

In a letter to Denonville, dated December 1, 1686, he 
said: " I have ordered our Indians strictly not to exer- 
cise any cruelty or insolence against them, and have 
written to the King, my master, who hath as much 
zeal as any prince living, fco propagate the Christian 
faith, and assure him how necessary it is to send 
hither some fathers to preach the Gospell to the natives 
allyd to us, and care would be taken to dissuade them 
from their drunken debauches, though certainly our 

24 



rum doth as little hurt as your brandy, and, in the 
opinion of Christians, is much more wholesome; how- 
ever, to keep the Indians temperate and sober is a 
very good and Christian performance, but to prohibit 
them all strong liquors seems a little hard and very 
Turkish." Dongan exhibits his kindness to the Indians, 
his sensible views of life and his Milesian origin, when 
he thus expresses his sentiments on the prohibition 
question. 

Whatever may have been his motives in sending 
priests among them, they were justifiable, both on social 
and political grounds. A Catholic Christian Indian was 
a better man, in a practical sense than a pagan one 
with all his cruelties and debaucheries indulged in then 
as a part of his religious observances. 

As a matter of experience in the missionary history 
of the North American Indians, Catholic priests, 
especially the Jesuits, "the black gowns," have had 
more success in converting them to Christianity than 
all others combined. Their robes and ceremonies 
appealing to the Indian imagination have produced 
wonderful results. It was not different then; the 
French Jesuits had made an impression on the brave 
Iroquois to the extent that some had abandoned their 
country to follow them and others would not fight 
against their friends. As a grave political question, 
when the safety of the colony depended upon gaining 
their friendship, none except Jesuits could have been 
offered to them nor could others have produced equal 
results. They would have none others at that time, for 

25 D 



Stomas gotxgatx. 

when Dongan addressed the Five Nations at their largest 
representative conference in Albany on August 5, 1687, 
and promised them priests as an inducement to remain 
on friendly terms with the English, they replied that 
they would receive them. It is supererogation to 
defend an attempt to propagate the gospel, a work 
approved by the consensus of all Christian people, 
but it was a heinous offense, at that time to be a Cath- 
olic and it became the habit of colonial writers, after the 
revolution, in 1688, to ascribe political motives to every 
act of James II or his lieutenants, so that Dongan was, 
in subsequent years, charged with designs prejudicial 
to the State, in sending Jesuits among the Indians, 
but in the light of modern research the accusation is 
both false and ridiculous. The English and Dutch 
cared but little for the souls of the Indians and much 
for their furs, and Dongan should be credited with 
both the Christian zeal that made him endeavor to 
bring the Indians to the "way of the cross" and the 
statesmanship that such a result would produce on 
the colonies. 

A student of the history of the Five Nations, in 
their relations with the French and English in America 
in the seventeenth century, must admit the paramount 
necessity to the colonists of securing their good 
will. 

France was sending veteran troops from home, deter- 
mined to crush the Indians, in order to open an avenue 
to New York, and England allowed them and the 
colonists to defend themselves without her assistance. 

26 



The Indians suffered grievously in these wars, many- 
were killed, they saw their castles burned, their crops 
destroyed, their wives and children dragged into cap- 
tivity ; England was reaping the benefit of their 
sufferings and making no corresponding sacrifices. 

The Iroquois were heart- sore and weary, and sought 
rest from their troubles ; they turned to their Christian 
brethren in Canada, with whom they were in com- 
munication, and contrasted their relative conditions 
and were inclined, not only not to fight against them 
and their friends, but to ally themselves with them. 
If that had been done, the map of northern New York 
would have been changed and its boundary would 
never have been the St. Lawrence. The migration of 
these Indians had already weakened the Indian bul- 
wark, and to lose more was death to the colony, and 
Dongan fought against it and won and laid the founda- 
tion of the train of events which helped France to 
lose an empire in America. 

In subsequent years the Earl of Bellomont and Briga- 
dier Hunter endeavored to follow Dongan's policy, and 
rectify their neglect in the matter by supplying the 
Indians with Protestant missionaries. But none could 
be found to endure the life of hardship and live 
among the Indians and become a part of their exist- 
ence as the Jesuits did. The government was convinced 
that the religious question among the Five Nations 
was most important, and promised them missionaries. 
Dominie Dellius, the Dutch minister, was quite suc- 
cessful, but he was banished. Their efforts in that 

27 



direction were weak, spasmodic and futile, for the 
motive was political, and not of the kingdom of God. 

Seventy years after Dongan's time, the political and 
financial necessity for the return of the Catholic 
Iroquois to New York still existed, and Lieutenant- 
Governor De Lancy wrote to the Indian commissioners 
in relation to bringing them back from Canada. The 
Saratoga lands were found not to be available for the 
purpose, and the project dropped. 

Dongan should be credited with the fact that he did 
not allow his religious convictions or his desire to con- 
vert the Indians to interfere with the duty he owed 
to the State. 

His earlier feelings towards the French Jesuits were 
of the kindest character. The letters of the brothers 
Lamberville and Father Dablon are filled with expres- 
sions of good will, gratitude and love for his endeavors 
to Christianize the Indians, but when events developed 
the political effects of the presence of the French 
Jesuits among them, he used every endeavor to drive 
them from among the Indians, and eventually did so. 

He was anxious that they should be Catholics, but 

wanted them English and not French, loyal to his 

people and not to their enemies ; he endeavored to 

supply their places with English priests, and that he 

did not succeed was not owing to want of faith or 

endeavor, but because the English Jesuits were few 

and not acquainted with the language of the Indians, 

and the wars and his short term of oflSce prevented 

the full realization of his plans. 

28 



Stomas g^ttgam 

Boundary disputes were of frequent occurrence in 
colonial times. 

As early as 1650, Connecticut made claims to portions 
of the Dutch territory, and in 1663 coerced Stuyvesant 
to surrender a portion of Westchester county to it, and 
in 1664, when Nicolls was Governor, had the boundary 
fixed by running a line twenty^miles east of the Hudson 
river. 

When Dongan became Governor, he promptly reopened 
the contention, by giving orders that certain towns 
within the disputed territory make presentment at the 
New York assizes. Connecticut immediately claimed 
those places as indubitably her own, but found in Don- 
gan, the Irishman, different material than it did in 
Stuyvesant, the Dutchman, and in the careless Nicolls, 
and learned that its " crowding- out " processes would 
not work with him. 

Dongan bluntly replied, that it had deceived Nicolls in 
1664 by running the line ten miles instead of twenty 
miles east of the river, according to the agreement, and 
notified Connecticut if it did not yield the disputed 
territory, he should proceed at once to claim the whole 
of the Duke's patent to the Connecticut river. 

Connecticut surrendered the towns in short order and 
sent commissioners to New York, where, in 1684, the 
boundary line between the colonies was agreed upon, 
where it has remained since. 

Similar disputes took place with Jersey in regard to 

the ownership of Staten Island, which was conceded to 

New York; and even Massachusetts claimed a good 

29 



share of the colony, and, as an expression of her right, 
granted lands opposite to Fort Orange. 

Prior to Dongan's time, the colonists had no voice in 
the enactment of laws. 

They were ruled by the Governor and his council, 
which, with the Duke of York, was the law-making 
power. In 1664, the laws in force in the king's colonies 
and plantations were collected together and formed into 
a code, and delivered to the colonists at a general meet- 
ing held at Hempstead, upon Long Island, in March of 
that year, by virtue of a commission given by the Duke 
of York to Governor Nicolls. The compilation was, and 
is now, known as the "Duke's Laws." The laws were 
fair and just, substantially the same as those of Eng- 
land, except where the situation and condition of the 
colonists made departures necessary; it was a complete 
code, regulating administration, procedure, marriage, 
military affairs, and all matters except customs and 
taxes. 

The Catholic Duke of York, while providing for the 
State establishment of the Church of England, therein 
enacted the first law in the colony, which, under the 
Dutch, had witnessed the persecution of the Lutherans, 
Baptists and Quakers, providing for the freedom of 
worship, by decreeing that no person (in the colony) be 
molested, fined or imprisoned for differing in judgment 
in matters of religion who profess Christianity. 

Dongan's instructions, which accompanied his commis- 
sion, directed him to call by writ and summons a gen- 
eral assembly of all the freeholders of the province in 

30 



New York city, to be known as the " General Assembly 
of New York and its dependencies," to establish laws for 
the good of the State, subject to the Governor's and the 
Duke of York's consent and approval. 

Under his call, the first general assembly, wherein 
the people of this State met to enact laws for their 
government was held in New York city in October, 1683. 

Its first act bore the title of the " Charter of Liberties 
and Privileges granted by his Royal Highness to the 
inhabitants of New York and its dependencies." 

Dongan's liberal spirit, his love of liberty and his 
desire to grant freedom of conscience to the colonists, 
which was denied to them in England and Ireland, is 
evidenced by every line of this remarkable document. 

That it could not have passed without Dongan's direct 
sanction is certain, because he had the power of veto, 
before it could be sent to the Duke of York for final 
approval, and that the broad spirit of liberalism and 
toleration which it exhibited was his, is further evi- 
denced by the fact, that the act was beyond his 
instructions for it never received the duke's complete 
approval and was finally specifically revoked. 

This charter of liberties marks so important an era 
in the history of popular government in America, and 
is so directly connected with the heart and personality 
of this Catholic Irishman that I must be pardoned if 
I refer to it at length. I quote from the New York 
Civil List, page 49 et seq. (See, also. Col. MSS. of 
New York, vol. 3, p. 357.) "The first act of this, 
the first general assembly of the colony of New York, 

31 



was' entitled, ' Charter of Liberties and Privileges granted 
by his Royal Highness to the inhabitants of New York 
and its dependencies.' Its first sentence contained the 
phrase : ' people met in general assembly,' to which 
James objected, when he became King of England, on the 
ground that it is 'not found in any other constitution 
in America; ' and this royal objection, with the char- 
acter of this charter, places New York in advance of 
any other colony, and proves that it held the leader- 
ship in the struggle for equal rights and ancient lib- 
erties. The entire sentence read that 'under his 
majesty and royal highness, James, Duke of York, 
Albany, etc.,' 'supreme legislative power shall forever 
be and reside in the Glovernor, council and people met 
in general assembly.' The year of its adoption wit- 
nessed the establishment of a free and representative 
government in Pennsylvania, and the first session of its 
general assembly. 

"James became King of England in February, 1685. 
At a meeting of the Committee of Trade and Planta- 
tions, March third, this minute was ordered entered: 
'The Charter of Incorporation of the Province of New 
York being read, His Majesty doth not think it fit to 
confirm,' and the government was ordered assimilate 
to that projected for New England. Observations upon 
the charter were entered, which show that the objec- 
tions were political, and demonstrate that the colonists 
were in advance of the inhabitants of other colonies, in 
their demands upon the Crown, as well as in their con- 
cessions of personal liberty. 

32 



"The charter opened grandly. It declared 'that, for 
the better establishing of the government of this pro- 
vince of New York, and that Justice a ad Right may be 
equally done to all persons within the same, Be it 
enacted by the Governor, Council and Representatives 
now in General Assembly met and assembled, and by 
the authority of the same.' And the charter, after 
providing for the election of a General Assembly, 
enacted that the Representatives of the Province, with 
the Governor and his Council, shall be the Supreme and 
only legislative power. To this the King quietly 
inquired: 'Whether this does not abridge the act of 
Parliament that may be made concerning New York.' 
His observation upon this provision seems to be some- 
what in conflict with his remarks on the provision 
that the inhabitants be governed by and according to 
the laws of England. 'This privilege,' he said, 'is not 
granted to any of His Majesty's Plantations.' Of the 
provisions that sheriffs and other officers of justice 
be appointed with like powers as in England, he said, 
' This is not so distinctly granted or practiced in any 
other plantation.' The charter provided 'that the exer- 
cise of the chief magistracy and administration of the 
government over the said province shall be in the said 
Governor, assisted by a Council with whose advice and 
consent, or with at least four of them, he is to rule 
and govern the same according to the laws thereof.' 
To this the king objected that 'no other Governor is 
restrained from anything without the Council.' The 
charter provided 'that according to the usage, custom 

33 E 



Stomas §onQmt. 

and practice of the Parliament of England, sessions of 
a General Assembly be held in this province once in 
three years at least,' to which the king objected, that 
trienniel sessions 'are an obligation upon the govern- 
ment greater than has been ever agreed to in any 
other plantation, and the grant of such a privilege has 
been rejected elsewhere, notwithstanding a revenue 
offered to induce it.' The provision that acts be 
presented to the Governor and Council for approval, said 
the king, ' seems to take away from the Governor and 
Council the power of framing laws as in other planta- 
tions.' The provision limiting to two years the power of 
the Lord Proprietor to dissent to bills, said James, 'does 
abridge the King's power and has been thought incon- 
venient in other plantations.' The provision that the 
Assembly is to judge of the elections and qualifications of 
its members, 'maybe inconvenient,' he said, 'and is not 
practiced in some other plantations.' Of the provision 
guaranteeing liberty of conscience, the king remarked 
that it ' is practiced in the proprietaries ; ' and it was 
the only section which he seems to have affirmatively 
approved, although there were other important provis- 
ions which he did not explicitly disapprove." * * * 

" The entire charter we are considering is a clear and 
crisp declaration of the ancient liberties of all Aryan 
freemen. The remaining portion reads substantially as 
follows: 'Every freeholder and freeman shall vote with- 
out restraint. No freeman shall suffer but by judgment 
of his peers, and all trials shall be by a jury of twelve 
men. No tax, tillage, assessment, custom, loan, benevo- 

34 



Stomas ^ouQmx. 

lence or imposition whatever shall be laid, assessed, 
imposed or levied, on any of his Majesty's subjects 
within this province, or their estates, upon any manner 
of color or pretense, but by the act of the Governor, 
Council and Representatives of the People in General 
Assembly met and assembled. No seaman or soldier 
shall be quartered on the inhabitants against their will. 
No martial law shall exist. No person professing faith 
in God by Jesus Christ shall at any time be anyways 
disquieted or questioned for any difference of opinion.' 
Its approval by the Governor was the signal for great 
rejoicing. 

" Thus was set forth in admirable phrase the rights 
for which the Dutch and English colonists had unitedly 
contended for nearly half a century. It was the full 
fruitage of freedom, bursting the shell of feudalism, 
and clothing itself in more perfect organic form, evolved 
from ancient systems, which had become incapable of 
preserving and protecting the liberties of the people. 
Alike in spirit and substance, it presented in most per- 
fect form that which was dearest to all — to the eighteen 
nationalties represented in the province under Stuy- 
vesant — to English and Dutch, their common German 
ancestors and Keltic neighbors, so long crushed under 
Druidic dominion." 

This charter also provided "that every publick min- 
ister upon Long Island should be maintained according 
to the subscriptions. That all contracts made in New 
York for the maintenance of the severall ministers shall 
be made good." The observation on that was, " this is 

35 



agreeable to the practice of New England, but not of 
his maJV other plantations." Dongan thereby provided 
by law for the support of the Protestant church and 
ministers, and made their maintenance a charge upon 
the respective communities, as was the law in Puritan 
New England. 

James, by decree dated May 29, 1686, further extended 
the clause guaranteeing liberty of conscience and free- 
dom of worship to all " who profess faith in God, by 
Jesus Christ," by granting the privilege to "all persons 
of what religion soever." 

Thus did a Catholic King and Governor declare the 
rights and sanctity of conscience. The Jew, the Mahom- 
edan and Catholic were placed on an equality with 
the Protestant, and all were allowed to worship God 
according to the dictates of conscience. The enactment 
shone amid the darkness of that intolerant age, for but 
five years; when the king and Dongan were fugitives, it 
was repealed, and intolerance was again triumphant. 
His liberality and statesmanship was again shown, when 
he caused a beneficent act of naturalization to be passed 
by this first assembly, whereby all persons professing 
Christianity then in the province, or who subsequently 
came into it, were made citizens, a privilege in those 
days of much importance. This was not passed to 
benefit the Catholics, because there were then very few 
in the province, but, as I believe, because Dongan knew 
the trend of Louis XIV's feelings toward the Huguenots, 
and was willing to benefit the province by attracting 
those people to New York. 

36 



It fulfilled all its intendments, when, in 1685, Louis 
XIV, against the wishes and protestations of Pope Inno- 
cent XI, ordered the revocation of the edict of Nantes, 
and therewith the total abolition of all privileges there- 
tofore possessed by the Huguenots in France, and drove 
from that country many of its thriftiest and readiest 
hands, some of whom found already prepared for them 
m New York, by Louis XIV's former colonel, a haven 
of refuge. Their descendants are among the leading 
New York families of to-day. 

In May, 1687, the French Protestants in New York 
expressed their gratitude to the king for having so 
much goodness towards them, and for Dongan's pro- 
tection and beneficence, and petitioned Dongan if they 
bring immigrants into the province that they be allowed 
trading privileges, which petition was granted in July, 
1687. 

His beneficence was extended to all creeds. He 
charmed Dominie Selyns, the Dutch minister, who 
wrote to the classis at Amsterdam ' ' that Dongan was 
a gentleman of knowledge, politeness and friendship, 
that he had received a visit from his excellency and 
could call on him when he chose." In his report on 
the state of the colony (February, 1687) Dongan said 
"that every town ought to have a minister," of the 
church of England, and among his last official acts was 
an order to set free forthwith and to send home by the 
first opportunity, all Indian slaves, subjects of the King 
of Spain, who could give an account of their Christian 
faith and say the Lord's Prayer. 

37 



Stomas ^ouQmx. 

Dongan was at all times anxious to increase the 
population, and consequent wealth, of his province, 
and did so to some extent by his naturalization 
law. 

His reports show that he feared the lack of English- 
born subjects in the colony and he petitioned that some 
endeavors be made to send Englishmen to protect the 
country. He reported "for seven years not over twenty 
English, Scotch and Irish families came into the pro- 
vince, but many Dutch and some French," and as early 
as February 18, 1684, he recommended that a ship "go 
constantly between New York and Ireland and bring 
passengers for New York" and when on September 8, 
1687, he wrote to the lord president and called for 
assistance against the French, he said, " my lord, there 
are people enough in Ireland who had pretences to 
estates there and are of no advantage to the country 
and may live here very happy. I do not doubt, if his 
majesty thinks fit to employ my nephew he will bring 
over as many as the king will find convenient to send 
who will be no charge to his majesty after they are 
landed." 

Unfortunately it was not done. What speculations 
may we not indulge in as to the probable influence of 
those brave children of Drogheda, Wexford and Clonmel, 
"with pretences to estates" upon the history of our 
country and the status of the Irish in America to-day, 
if Dongan's prayers had been granted and those patriotic 
people welcomed to our soil, as freemen, over two 
hundred years ago. 

38 



Stomas §onQnu. 

King Charles II died February 6, 1685, and was 
succeeded by the Duke of York, his brother, under the 
title of James II. 

New York, theretofore a Duchy, was annexed to the 
crown as a royal province; all its officers were con- 
tinued in power by royal proclamation, but Dongan was 
subsequently recommissioned as the king's lieutenant 
as well as Governor on June 10, 1686. 

I spoke before concerning the bankrupt state of the 
colony when Dongan arrived. The French attacks on 
the Indians, which followed his arrival, not only 
increased the public burdens, but also, by interfering 
with the fur trade, had decreased the public revenues. 

Taxes were laid which the people could not pay, but 
the lack of public funds did not deter Dongan from 
protecting the colony; he spent his private fortune and 
borrowed money on his personal credit to advance the 
public interests, with the usual results to those who 
serve the people too well. 

A letter from the duke's committee, bearing date of 
March 10, 1683-4, refers to his asking for £1,500 to pay 
his debts, and defers its payment. Another of Novem- 
ber 1, 1684, again procrastinates about his request for 
money — a demand which to them "seems soe reason- 
able and soe much yr right." In 1686, his salary was 
raised from £400 to £600 per annum, but no moneys 
were sent to pay his debts, contracted for the public 
welfare. In his celebrated report on the state of the 
colony, of date of February 22, 1687, made to the com- 
mittee on trades and plantations, he complains that he 

39 



Stomas g0tx0ati. 

has to run the government without public funds, and 
says, substantially: "It is a very hard thing upon mee 
that, coming over hither in troublesome times, finding 
noe revenue established, and yet having three garrisons 
to look after and the forts with rotten timbers and 
dismounted guns, a contest with Canada, and having to 
purchase large tracts of land for the government, to 
support the Assembly, to receive commissioners, run 
boundary lines and pay salaries." 

In a letter to the lord president of the board of trade, 
not dated, (vol. 3, Doc. Hist, of N. Y., p. 428) he speaks 
of the loss of colonial revenues and his great expendi- 
tures in paying troops, and repairing forts, and 
complained how much the king owed him and he owed 
the people because of it. The fact that he did this 
is remarkable when taken in connection with his zeal 
to advance the English power in America, because in 
those days men were colonial governors for revenue 
only, and Dongan should not ordinarily have had love 
of country as a spur, for he had been in France since 
a boy, to which country he had been driven a fugitive. 
He urged the annexation of Connecticut, Khode Island, 
East and West Jersey and part of Pennsylvania to 
New York, to prevent a diversion of trade, and thus 
to increase the revenue, and also to lessen the cost of 
government. 

He wanted to establish a mint and post-houses along 

the Atlantic coast from Carolina to Nova Scotia, the 

latter request being acceded to, but he was sent " noe 

power to doe it." 

40 



*glxonx'as gotigaii* 

In April, 1686, he granted a charter to New York 
city, and in July another to Albany. Both of these 
remarkable documents, engrossed on parchment, are 
still in existence, and can be seen among the archives 
of the respective cities. We can not enter into a dis- 
quisition on the charters, except to say that they were 
carefully drawn and were so liberal in the privileges 
given to the people, that although they were granted 
in the days of the Stuarts, they are the basis of the 
government of these two American cities to-day ; the 
Dongan charter of Albany not having been super- 
seded until 1870, and then its privileges and liberties 
were incorporated into a charter granted to it that 
year. 

At the very time Dongan was granting these popular 
charters, the king, his master in England, was revok- 
ing those of the oldest municipalities in his realm. 
Among the charges presented against him by his 
enemies to the king, was that the people of New 
York were granted extraordinary privileges in their 
charter ; but the mayor and common council peti- 
tioned the king in Dongan's behalf with warm words 
of praise and gratitude, and the accusation fell with 
the others. 

A man of such unceasing activity, so full of fight for 
the rights of his people, and so uniformly successful 
in defending them could not but expect to make 
enemies. 

It is the way of the world, and Dongan's experience 
was no exception. 

41 F 



These enemies were all to his credit and each by his 
enmity bore testimony to Dongan's integrity and power. 

Penn was Dongan's enemy at the Court of Whitehall for 
his successes over Pennyslvania; Connecticut and New 
Jersey were bitter over boundary and trade matters, 
which Dongan would not allow them to steal ; Massa- 
chusetts feared his colonial policy of consolidation, the 
French pursued him through all the mazes of diplomacy 
and war, and those in the colony who would rob it and 
debauch the Indians endeavored to have him superseded. 

John Santem, collector and receiver of the colonial 
revenue, preferred charges against him. They were dis- 
missed, and Santem, who was found to be a defaulter 
in the sum of £3,000, was sent to England for trial. 
The petition of tho corporation of New York to the 
king in Dongan's behalf, refuting the Santem charges, 
is couched in most heartfelt expressions of confidence 
in his honesty and gratitude for his services. He 
recommended that some person of wealth and promi- 
nence in the colony be appointed in Santem's place, 
because those that were sent out usually endeavored to 
make a fortune in a few years, but his interest in the 
colony was again set at naught and Matthew Plowman 
received the office. 

In 1686, he heard rumors that Penn had caused his 
removal and that he was going to be ordered back to 
the army. His official life was unassailable, his enemies 
therefore endeavored to persuade the king that his mil- 
itary skill was necessary to the army, in order to 

remove him from New York. 

42 



Stomas §0tX0atx. 

He petitioned tlie king in person in 1686, and the lord 
president of the board of trade in 1687 to be allowed to 
remain until he had paid his debts, because he had left 
a fortune in France when he left there in pursuance of 
the king's command to serve in his army. 

The rumor also reached him from Canada, which 
received it by way of Paris. 

On January 22, 1687-8, he wrote to the king that he had 
just received a letter from the Earl of Tyrconnell, 
wherein the earl sets forth that it will be requisite for 
his majesty's service that he go home and says that he 
consents to serve his king in his armies, but asks that 
money be remitted to pay his debts before he leaves, 
because the king is in debt to him and he to the people 
because of it. 

About this time, Dongan's recommendations as to 
colonial unity were adopted. 

King James, in 1688, ordered the union of all his 
colonies in America, north of Delaware and Pennsyl- 
vania, into one common government, to be known as 
New England in America, and presumably through 
French influence, Dongan was superseded, and Sir 
Edmond Andros was appointed Governor. He was 
notified by royal command, of the change, on April 28, 
1688, and ordered "to repair to our Royall presence, 
where you may expect from us marks of our Royall 
favor and assurance of our entire satisfaction in your 
good services during your gov't of our Colony." 

The change in the form of government was not popular, 
and helped materially in weakening the king's cause in 

43 



Stomas §0MQmx. 

America. The colonists had been made to believe that 
the king had sold New York to the French, and that 
Dongan was to be removed because he was not "such 
an ill person as to deliver it," and that Andros was to 
be sent over to do it. 

The belief shows the popular idea of Dongan among 
the colonists, and illustrates a public sentiment in his 
favor, which protected him when a fugitive a year later. 
His accounts as Governor were passed, and the colony 
turned over to Andros in August, 1688. 

He was offered by the king, the position of major 
general in the British army and a regiment, both of which 
he declined, and retired to his farm on Long Island. 

We must transfer our attention, now, to Europe, 
where events were happening which had great effect on 
Dongan's life. 

In 1688, the English people revolted against the 
Stuarts; William and Mary were made rulers of Eng- 
land; in 1690, the battle of the Boyne was fought and 
lost and James II and his faithful followers were 
fugitives in France. 

The Dongans in Europe remained loyal to their king. 
Dongan's nephew. Lord Dongan, was killed at the 
Boyne, at the head of his dragoons, and his brother, 
the Earl of Limerick, continuing steadfast to the royal 
cause, retired to France. 

Dongan, on the death of his nephew, became the next in 
succession to the title and estates of the Earl of Limerick. 

The revolution of 1688, has its reflex action in 
America where it took a decidedly anti- Catholic turn. 

44 



Jacob Leisler, a fanatical trader of New York, seized 
the government, and as there was no excuse for his 
action, he made one, by declaring he had captured the 
forts and taken charge of public affairs to preserve the 
Protestant religion. 

There happened to be a few Catholic soldiers in the 
garrison, who were at once disarmed, and much ado 
made over their presence. He caused rumors to be 
circulated of Catholic plots to deliver the government 
over to France, and, although Dongan was living peace- 
ably on his farm on Long Island, he was wrongfully 
and maliciously accused with intent to create public 
sentiment, of all sorts of cabals and schemes to cap- 
ture the forts and resume his power. 

The train bands denounced him as a papist, and had 
him confined a prisoner on his place at Hempstead, but 
he escaped to New Jersey and took passage for England. 

His vessel got only as far as Neversink, where it laid 
for sixteen days battling with adverse winds. Dongan 
was sick and resolved to sail back, choosing rather 
to die on shore than at sea, and returned to New 
Jersey. 

Leisler sent out eighteen men to disarm all the Cath- 
olics on Long and Staten islands, and to search their 
houses. They found four guns in Dongan's mill-house 
and magnified the fact to one of great importance. 
The Catholics were hunted like wild beasts and driven 
into the woods. 

Leisler, by proclamation, dated February 15, 1689, and 
February 21, 1689, ordered the arrest of Dongan, and of 

45 



Stomas SouQKU. 

all *' such persons who are reputed papists," or who 
held commissions under him. 

Many fled and got away with Dongan, but more were 
arrested and imprisoned. Dongan's property was seized, 
and even his servants were imprisoned. He was hunted 
out of New Jersey and fled to Khode Island, where he 
met Sir Edmond Andros, who had also been arrested 
in Massachusetts, but who had escaped; but in Sep- 
tember, 1689, he was reported "now in these parts 
again (New York); he has ranged all the country and 
is mett daily by several." Dongan, who had granted 
the colonists the right to worship God according to 
the dictates of conscience, was a fugitive because of 
his religion. He was pursued by those to whom he 
had been both tolerant and liberal, but he had the sym- 
pathy of the most influential men in the colony, like 
Bayard, Van Courtland, Schuyler and Livingston, who 
refused to recognize Leisler, and were persecuted for 
their opposition to him, so he was not apprehended. 

Albany held out against Leisler until he refused to 
send troops to defend her against the threatened 
French invasion which culminated in the massacre at 
Schenectady, she then surrendered to his lieutenant, 
Jacob Milbourne. 

Leisler and Milbourne were subsequently hung, but 
not because they were religious fanatics, in fact, that 
was their defense. 

Dongan was in Boston during the greater part of the 
year of 1690, from which place he sailed, arriving in Eng- 
land in 1691. While it may not be germane to inquire 

46 



Stomas g0U0ati, 

into what took place in New York after Dongan left, 
the public acts of the succeeding general assemblies bear 
testimony to Dongan's personality and influence, in the 
remarkable regard for popular rights shown by the char- 
ters granted and the legislation enacted during his 
governorship. 

Between 1683, the date of Dongan's charter of liber- 
ties and privileges, and the bill of rights, passed in 
1691, the people did not change, but the rulers did ; 
in 1691 the same people passed a bill of rights, 
wherein it was enacted that no person who professed 
faith in God by Jesus Christ, His only Son, should 
be molested on account of his religion, provided, how- 
ever, " that nothing herein mentioned or contained 
shall extend or to give liberty for any persons of the 
Romish religion to exercise their manner of worship, 
contrary to the laws and statutes of their majesty's 
kingdom of England." 

In 1684 they begged for Jesuits, but in 1700, by statute, 
priests were expelled from the colony under penalties 
of perpetual imprisonment and death, and people harbor- 
ing them were subject to a fine of £200, to be set in 
the pillory, and to be imprisoned in default of bonds 
for good behavior. 

An act passed in 1701 forever prohibited a papist or 
popish recusant from voting for any office in the colony. 

In 1715, an act declaratory of Dongan's naturalization 
act of 1683 was passed, which, while it secured property 
rights acquired under it, provided and allowed only for all 
future times to come, for the naturalization of Protestants. 

47 



We mention these laws without comment, for they 
were enacted by the same persons who passed Dongan's 
beneficent statutes, as examples of the powers possessed 
by the colonial Governors, and as proof conclusive that 
the acts of 1683 were Dongan's in thought, word and deed. 

He returned to England to reside, at least forty- two 
years after he left Ireland to go to France, and found 
his brother, the Earl of Limerick, a fugitive in France, 
and all the rich Dongan estates confiscated. 

The confiscations comprised the castle, manor and 
lands of Castletown-Kildrought, and other noble estates 
in the counties of Kildare, Dublin, Carlow, Meath, Kil- 
kenny, Longford, Tipperary and Queens, containing 
26,480 acres, besides house property in Dublin city, and 
some impropriate rectories, glebes, advowsons and 
tithes. The lands, with much more, were given to the 
Dutch Lieutenant- General, Baron de Ginkell, created 
Earl of Athlone and Baron of Aughrim, as a reward for 
his successes against the Irish. 

The rectories, with the glebes in the county of Tip- 
perary, were in 1703 made over to the trustees for the 
augmentation of small livings and other ecclesiastical 
uses, as was that of Castletown- Kildrough, in the 
county of Kildare, the Dongan residence. 

Dongan had taken no part in the rebellion, was not 
a party to or a member of any cabal or conspiracy, 
had had no entangling alliances, and, as far as the king 
was concerned, had an absolutely clean record, and 
was recommended to his favor by reason of his age 
and distinguished services to the state. 



Stomas §o\xQmx. 

When the Dongan estates were seized, no discrimina- 
tions were made, and the forfeiture included Thomas' 
private estates in Queen's county, inherited from his 
father. 

The first Earl of Limerick died in France, childless, 
in 1698, and Dongan succeeded to the title and became 
the second Earl of Limerick. 

He claimed the exemption of his private estates from 
the forfeiture, and also the Castletown estates, under 
the settlement made thereof, by his grandfather, in 1615, 
but got neither. 

I quote from Gerard (Mag. of Am. Hist., July, 1886, 
tit. Dongan's Charter) as to his career after he left 
America : " When Governor Dongan returned to 
England, he seems not only to be in reduced circum- 
stances, but to have been almost impoverished. He 
made several applications to regain his family estates, 
the title deeds to which had been lost through the 
troublous times. He appealed, also, for payment of long 
arrearages of pension and for his advances to the gov- 
ernment while in America. He states in one of his 
petitions that he is old and poor, and that at least £17,000 
is due him. He was at first allowed £2,500, and subse- 
quently William III made an order in council, reciting 
the facts of his case, and the inability of the earl to 
live in England without some payment and that he 
was disposed to live upon a small estate he had in 
America; and it was ordered that a small prize vessel 
of 160 tons and eight guns be given to the earl to 
assist him in transporting him and his goods to 

49 G 



America and to be retained by him there. An act of 
Parliament was also passed in May, 1702, recognizing 
his succession to his brother's estates, but he was only 
to be allowed to redeem these on the payment of 
claims of purchasers from the Earl of Athlone. 

"Dongan also petitioned Queen Anne in 1704, stating 
that if a third of what was due him were paid, he 
would release the rest, and that it would be better 
under the circumstances to live in Turkey than in 
England. In a petition referred to the commissioners 
of the treasury in 1714, he states that after paying his 
brother's debts and his own he had but little left for 
his support." 

"In a petition for arrears of pay, he relates that 
the state revenues (of New York) being small, 
he was obliged to mortgage his lands and sell his 
plate and furniture to meet the French invasion of 
1686, and that the war lasted one and one-half years, 
during which he disbursed £10,000, almost his entire 
fortune." 

"By his will made in July, 1713, he provides that he 
is to be buried by his kinsmen Eichard Barnwell at 
an expense of not over £100; and, after certain legacies 
he leaves the residue of his estate to his niece, form- 
erly Bridget Barnwell and to her husband, Colonel 
Christopher Nugent." 

Colonel Nugent was the son of Lady Bridget Dongan, 
sister of Thomas, by Francis Nugent of Dardistown. 

Nugent was a member of Parliament in 1689, and 
lieutenant-colonel of horse under James II; after the 

so 



Stomas ^ouQum 

Boyne, in 1691, he commanded the horse regiment of 
Sheldon, in the Irish brigade, in the service of France; 
he fought in Flanders, Germany and Italy; accompanied 
the first Pretender to Scotland in 1715 and 1716; took 
part in every French campaign from 1692 until 1718, and 
died in 1731, a marechal de camp, or major-general of 
horse, one of the bravest and most distinguished of the 
Irish soldiers in the armies of Louis XIV and Louis 
XV. Thomas Dongan died in the faith of his fathers, 
in 1715. He had never been married, and when he died, 
the title of the Earl of Limerick became extinct in the 
Dongan family. He was buried in St. Pancras church- 
yard in London, where his tombstone bears the following 
inscription: 

The Right Hon. THOMAS DONGAN, 

Earl of Limerick, 
Died December 14, 1715, 

Aged 81 Years. 
Requiescat in Pace. Amen. 

His estate lin America, not of great value 200 years 
ago, for lands were then very cheap, consisted of a 
house and lot in New York, a farm at Hempstead, 
lands in Martha's Vineyard and 25,000 acres of land at 
Castleton, Staten Island; the latter he had erected 
into a manor and lordship of Cassiltowne, evidently 
named after the family manor in Ireland. 

His kinsmen, Thomas, John and Walter Dongan, 
appear to have been domiciled in New York in 1715, 
for, by deed in May of that year, he directed a mes- 

51 



Stomas ^on^mt. 

suage and house in New York, and also a tract called 
the Vineyard, to be sold for his and their benefit. 
They must have succeeded to his estates in America, 
for in 1723 a private act was passed by the assembly 
of New York "to enable Thomas Dongan and Walter 
Dongan, two surviving kinsmen of Thomas, late Earl 
of Limerick, to sell some part of their estate for the 
payment of their debts, and discharging some incumber- 
ances wherewith the same is now charged," and a 
similar act was passed in 1726. 

Descendants of these kinsmen of Dongan are alive in 
America to-day. 

The arms of Dongan, as Earl of Limerick, are techni- 
cally described as follows: 

"Arms. Quarterly. 1st and 4th gu. three lions pas- 
sant, or, each holding in dexter paw a closed helmet 
arg. garnished of the second. 

"2nd and 3rd. az. six plates arg.; on a chief, or, a 
demi lion rampant, gu. 

"Crest. A lion, pass, or, supporting with the dexter 
foot, a close helmet, ar. garnished of the first." 

His personal arms, which he used according to the 
custom of colonial Governors as and for the privy seal 
of the colony, are the same as above, except that the 
third quarter is, "az. a talbot pass, arg." 

The personal arms, adopted by the Dongan Club as 
its seal, were taken from an impression on a document, 
now in the State department, made in 1686. 

Dongan, the statesman and soldier died an impover- 
ished and a disappointed man. 

52 



His life was worthier of a happier old age; but if 
those who do their duty on earth can have communion 
after death with mortality, and can participate in the 
panegyrics made upon them, Dongan did not suffer in 
vain. 

He has had his due meed of praise since, for all who 
have written concerning him or his times have done 
honor to his life and virtues. 

Mrs. Lamb, in her History of New York, says that 
"he had broad, intelligent views, was an accomplished 
politician, and was essentially a man for the times. 
He was a ready talker, bland and deferential to his 
associates and fitted to inspire confidence in all around 
him. He has been justly classed among the best of 
our colonial Governors." 

In Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of 
America (vol. 3, p. 404), it is said that Dongan, 
** though a Roman Catholic, an Irishman and a sol- 
dier, proved himself to be an excellent and prudent 
magistrate." 

Smith, the colonial historian of New York, says that 
he *' was a man of integrity, moderation and genteel 
manners, and though a professed papist, may be 
classed among the best of our Governors." 

Lossing calls him "the liberal and just Governor," and 
writes that he stood by the people as long as he could 
and until he was ordered to surrender the government 
into the hands of Andros, a supple tool of James II. 

Gerard says that '* Dongan was a man of experi- 
ence in war and politics, and filled the public duties 

53 



of his difficult post with activity and wisdom ; he was 
considerate and moderate in his government, just and 
tolerant, and his personal character was that of an 
upright and courteous gentleman." 

Hinckley, of Plymouth, one of the most zealous of 
Puritans, says that *'he was of a noble and praise- 
worthy mind and spirit, taking care that all the people 
in each town do their duty in maintaining the minis- 
ter of the place, though himself of a different opinion 
from their way." 

That, in connection with what I have already quoted 
as having been written by Dominie Selyns, expresses 
the opinion of contemporaneous protestants as to his 
liberal character in dealing with the religious opinions 
of others, a quality of transcendent merit, in an age, 
in which, to use the language of Eobertson, the 
celebrated historian, "when not only the idea of tolera- 
tion, but even the word itself in the sense now affixed 
to it, was unknown." 

Dongan administered the government to the satisfac- 
tion of his king and the gratification of the colonists ; 
no scandals attached to his office, and instead of 
robbing the State, it robbed him. His record was 
clean, his personal character stainless, and his ability 
commensurate with his great official responsibilities. 

His prominent characteristic was a firm devotion to 
duty. As a boy his duty to Ireland made him a soldier 
and he fought the English because of it; as a soldier 
of France, he gave her the best years of his life and 
all his talents; when called back by his king, his work 

54 



Stomas g0tx0ati» 

made him smother his feelings for the wrongs of his 
native country, and his love for France, and he baffled 
the French to serve the English. 

Fortune did not stand in the way of duty; he left 
one in France and spent another in America to benefit 
the State, and, considering that money values have 
increased tenfold in two centuries, his pecuniary sacri- 
fices were enormous. 

Zealous and devoted to his own religion, he endeav- 
ored to foster all others, but when duty demanded 
the expulsion of the French Jesuits, they did not stand 
on the order of their going, but went. 

As a statesman, dealing with human rights, he was 
a century in advance of his times. 

His municipal charters were models of legal acumen, 
and founded so deep in the true principles of govern- 
ment, that they have survived unto this day. His 
celebrated Charter of Liberties did not die when 
revoked; it simply slept. It was like a seed planted; 
although hidden, it worked its purposes in nature, 
and blossomed forth, when fully ripe, a perennial oak 
in the Constitution of the United States. 

We have spoken of matters, not in their historical 
sequence, but have grouped them to show the man. We 
have not done him justice and have left much unsaid, 
but if our feeble efforts will but slightly increase popular 
knowledge of Dongan, and justify in your minds the 
founding of a club, bearing his honored name, we will 
not have labored in vain. 



55 




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